1) What are you doing this spring that you weren’t doing 1 year ago?Making travel plans! A year ago, the pandemic lockdown was relatively new, it was hard even to get a covid test, let alone a vaccination, and it seemed that we would be stuck at home forever. Now, with the U.S. vaccination rateContinue reading “Friday Five: A Year Later”
Category Archives: Wildlife in Our Yard
Brood X: the 17th Year
The cicadas are here! This is Brood X, the group that emerges from the ground in parts of the Eastern U.S. on a 17-year-cycle. So we last saw them in 2004. I lived in my old house then, with only a few trees in the yard. These cicadas lay their eggs in trees, so 17Continue reading “Brood X: the 17th Year”
Eyes on the Sparrows
Yesterday Bob pulled out some ugly, scraggly shrubs near our front door, so we could replace them with azaleas. He commented to me that a sparrow in the dogwood tree was scolding him the whole time. Then we saw the nest. One of the ugly shrubs had been home to a nest full of babyContinue reading “Eyes on the Sparrows”
Photo Friday: Cardinal in the Snow
We had a mostly mild winter, and were hit with only a few days of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. There wasn’t even a lot of it — this is Virginia, after all — but the roads were sloppy, briefly, and I didn’t really want to go out. So I mostly stayed in on thoseContinue reading “Photo Friday: Cardinal in the Snow”
Pepino Returns
After dealing with several mice in the house, we were finally convinced that we had succeeded in getting rid of them. We hadn’t seen or heard a mouse in weeks. And then, on Saturday night, I walked into the kitchen to see Pepino scurrying across the floor to disappear under the refrigerator. Damn. Bob saidContinue reading “Pepino Returns”
Photo Friday: Snowbird
Until this week, we hadn’t had measurable snow in Alexandria since February 2019. Now we’ve broken our snowless streak, though I wouldn’t call it a major storm. It started when we were in Harrisonburg to bring our son back to JMU when campus reopened. Snow began falling there about 1 a.m. Sunday. The storm reachedContinue reading “Photo Friday: Snowbird”
Fourteen Birds
A study finds that people are happier if they are exposed to more biodiversity of birds in their environment. Seeing fourteen different species of birds on a regular basis brings as much happiness as making an extra $150 a month would bring. Despite my semi-urban environment, my yard is usually full of birds. But doContinue reading “Fourteen Birds”
Library for Birds … and Bernie
The birds in my neighborhood love the Library 4 Birds that my cousin made for me. But look at this little guy who showed up there. I guess that makes it a Library 4 Bern!
Photo Friday: Cedar Waxwing
Birds love my yard. Among others, we regularly see cardinals, chickadees, robins, grackles, sparrows, blue jays, starlings, wrens, warblers, hummingbirds, two kinds of hawks, and three kinds of woodpeckers. But until last week, I had never seen cedar waxwings. Last Wednesday, I suddenly noticed a pair of them just outside the kitchen window. They seemContinue reading “Photo Friday: Cedar Waxwing”
Photo Friday: Fire Pit
Fall weather has finally come. The evenings are cool, and a few times, we’ve sat on the patio at night, enjoying a fire in our fire pit. With marshmallows. The fire pit is an old one, a cast-off that a neighbor was putting out to the curb for the trash one day, just after we’dContinue reading “Photo Friday: Fire Pit”
The Petrini Page 